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Hokitika Guardian, 27 March 1928, Page 4

THE RIGOUR 01' THE GAME. I<> the scoffer. the high adventure by a Bouriieinontl) golfer with a common or garden worm may seem' a small matter. To the serious student of a royal and ancient game, it becomes of immense importance. This unfortunate gentleman, playing in a competition in which the absolute rules matter enormously, found a worm curled lovingly round his ball when he reached the green. After due consultation he removed the worm without disturbing the ball. Inevitably the ease had to go before the highest authorities for one of those epoch-making decisions which govern our path from tee to tee, from rough to bunker. And it was held that he had transgressed the letter of the law and should be penalised one stroke. ■lt is all very well in friendly games to remit by mutual consent those letters of the law, to wipe our balls on the green, to claim no forfeit if the wrong ball is played, or to ignore the tragedy, supposing a caddie were to interpose his nose between the ball and its objective. But when a serious match is in question, then the golfer rightly considers that he is not so much playing a game as engaging in an undertaking hallowed by tradition and encompassed by a complete judicial system. Thus does golf not only educate the temper, exercise the patience, and strengthen the soul of those who undertake its hazards, but provide us for ever'h.nd ever with interminable subjects of tedious conversation.—The “Morning Post."

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SPIRIT. The public schools have established a tradition of their own. They may have insisted upon uniformity at the

cost of doing injustice to those exceptional boys who, while they have won little honour in their school lives, as they did not shine upon the commonplace lines of mental or physical prowess, yet in their after-lives have often become the most highly honoured members of their generation, il not of all generations, in the school. They may have issued therefrom in a certain stable mediocrity. But in spite of all their faults and failings they have in a large measure created and disciplined the character of gentlemen. It has been sometimes critically observed that the Labour Party lacks what I have ventured to call the public school spirit. When the first Government of the Labour Party was formed, with Mr Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister, two great public schools, and only two. Harrow and 'Winchester, were represented in Ids Cabinet. For the iirst time during many years of English history there was no Etonian in the Cabinet. It happened when 1 referred ill a speech to this exclusion ol Eton from the Cabinet that a strong Etonian, who was also, I think, a strong Conservative, wrote to me saying his was one of the highest honours which had ever been paid to Eton. T could mil pretend to agree with him. if only because I cherished the hope that the Cabinet Ministers wltn had been educated at Harrow and Winchester might® not unnaturally .breathe something ol the public school spirit, into the Labour Party.—Bishop Weldon in “The Contemporary Review.”